What is your response to the 2008 Democratic Party platform on abortion?

By
Randy Alcorn
| January 12, 2011

Question from a reader:

What is your response to the 2008 Democratic Party platform which reads: “The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right”?

Answer from Randy Alcorn:

Substitute “a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion” with “a man’s right to rape a woman” or “a white person’s right to enslave black people” or “a Nazi’s right to kill Jews” and you will understand how repugnant this statement is to a person who believes that both Scripture and science show us that unborn children are, in fact, children. (And it is every bit as repugnant when I hear Republicans present this as their position.)

Are unborn children younger and smaller and weaker than the rest of us? Of course. But it’s scientifically inaccurate to say a human embryo or a fetus is not a human being simply because he’s at an earlier stage of development than an infant. This is like saying that a toddler isn’t a human being because he’s not yet an adolescent. One of my grandchildren is two years older than his brother. Does this mean he’s two years better? Does someone become more human as they get bigger? If so, then adults are more human than children, and football players are more human than jockeys. Something nonhuman doesn’t become human by getting older and bigger; whatever is human is human from the beginning.

In my opinion, the prochoice movement brings out our worst instincts in this regard. Remember years ago when the attention of our entire nation turned to baby Jessica, the little girl trapped at the bottom of that deep well? The amount of human resources poured into saving her was vast, but no one doubted whether she was worth it. What touched our hearts more than anything was her helplessness and vulnerability.

When we are thinking accurately, we realize that a helpless person deserves help precisely BECAUSE she is helpless. It's a sad commentary on society when a child’s helplessness and dependence on another is used as an argument against her right to live.

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